Labor without deliverance

16O Yahweh, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.

17Like a pregnant woman who is about to give birth writhes and cries out in her labor pains, so were we before you, O Yahweh.

18We were pregnant, we writhed in labor; as it were, we gave birth to wind. We accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world were not born.